EXISTENTIAL THREAT

AI Industry Leaders Issue Stark Warning on ‘Risk of Extinction’

More than 350 top researchers and executives signed a dire one-sentence statement on the dangers of unconstrained artificial intelligence.

As warnings go, it could not be much clearer, just one sentence: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.” The New York Times reports that more than 350 top artificial intelligence researchers and executives have signed the statement organized by the Center for AI Safety to highlight the existential risks posed by the unconstrained development of the new technology. They include Geoffrey Hinton, the Turing Award-winning AI pioneer who recently stepped down from Google; Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI; Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind; and Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic. Altman, Hassabis, and Amodei met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to push for high-level action to regulate AI before it is too late.